_First Published, November 1900 Second Edition, revised, with new
Appendix, February 1904._




PREFACE

Unlike most famous artists of the past, Giorgione has not yet found a
modern biographer. The whole trend of recent criticism has, in his case,
been to destroy not to fulfil. Yet signs are not wanting that the
disintegrating process is at an end, and that we have reached the point
where reconstruction may be attempted. The discovery of documents and
the recovery of lost pictures in the last few years have increased the
available material for a more comprehensive study of the artist, and the
time has come when the divergent results arrived at by independent
modern inquirers may be systematically arranged, and a reconciliation of
apparently conflicting views attempted on a psychological basis.

Crowe and Cavalcaselle were the first to examine the subject critically.
They separated--so far as was then possible (1871)--the real from the
traditional Giorgione, and their account of his life and works must
still rank as the nearest equivalent to a modern biography. Morelli, who
followed in 1877, was in singular sympathy with his task, and has
written of his favourite master enthusiastically, yet with consummate
judgment. Among living authorities, Dr. Gronau, Herr Wickhoff, Signor
Venturi, and Mr. Bernhard Berenson have contributed effectively to the
elucidation of obscure or disputed points, and the latter writer has
probably come nearer than anyone to recognise the scope of Giorgione's
art, and grasp the man behind his work. The monograph by Signor Conti